Day 2: Belfast.

The second post! Day 2 of the weekend extravaganza, in Belfast. Well, beginning with Saturday night. We went down the street to the Bot (the Botanic Inn), a bar that had been reccommended to us by a northerner at the Gaiety. It was loud and crazy but loads of fun; we got drinks and danced around & were talked to by drunk boys, including one who butted into our group, put one arm around Charlotte and the other around me & started swaying back and forth with us like we were at a folk rock concert, and another who was flirting hardcore with Nora, mostly about her hair.

In the morning, Kate, Lee, Nora and I woke up early and tried to find a Catholic church to go to mass, it being the first Sunday of Advent and all. We had the lady at the hostel give us a map and draw on it where to go, but we still managed to get lost, our feet soaked within minutes, and getting very cold. We managed to somehow nearly get onto Falls road, but thankfully we finally found the church. There was still an hour before mass so we went to McD's for breakfast (classy, I know), & then back for mass. It was short and simple, but really lovely.

We found a cafe to get some warm beverages (harder than you'd think...everything is closed until about 1pm on Sundays), and met up with the other girls, to go on a Black Cab Tour. This is where a taxi driver will take you around Belfast and tell you about the politics and history. If you're lucky you get to go to both sides. We were lucky.

Our driver (who never gave us his name) first took us up Shankill road, which is the Protestant side of Belfast suburbs. Falls road is the Catholic side. They're separated by the Peace wall, and no one really crosses sides at all. In the city centre, Catholics and Protestants mix with no problems; there isn't really a lot of violence anymore. But still no one goes to the other side of the wall. We stopped off Shankill road to see the murals. Similar to Derry, people on both sides of the wall have painted murals about their history in the conflict (though in Derry as far as I know it's mostly the Catholics?).



(This one's a mural of Protestants defending their homes from an attack. The words read, Can it change? We believe!)



A mural of various branches of Protestant groups, military and political. This was the scariest mural I saw, mostly because of that gunman on the top: wherever you go, in the entire area these murals were painted around, you can look at him & the gun will be pointing straight at you.



Remember the H-block monument from Derry? Same idea...from the other side. There were protestants in prison too.



Closeup of a mural for Oliver Cromwell. And below, one of Cromwell's scary quotes:



After Shankill road, our driver took us to the peace wall. He spent more time talking here, and on Falls road after that, which led me to believe he was Catholic though he never said so. He told us about the experiences of living here, a little, how it just became normal. He also mentioned, which I thought was interesting, that though the government has muttered about joining the Republic if there's a majority vote, a small chunk of Catholics have said (via polls) that they would vote to stay part of the UK, probably for economic reasons (the pound is ridiculously strong right now, even against the euro, which isn't doing all that bad).

The peace wall:







(Why kill? & May this come down one day)



(We are here for peace, Australia)

To get to the other side of the wall you have to pass through large open gates--which are closed every night. Mostly to prevent teenagers from getting to the other side & being stupid, he told us. But it's still a sobering thought.



The first mural we saw on Falls road, of Bobby Sands, MP. He was the first to die in the prison hunger strikes, and was also elected to Parliament while he was in prison.



Falls road itself.



Offices of the Sinn Fein ("ourselves alone" in Gaelic).

Near there is a wall of murals dedicated to international causes, mostly of civil rights and freedom:



(Mr. Douglas.)



(....sigh.)




Self determination for the Basque country!

And on an entirely different note, I'll round this all out with pictures from the Christmas market we went to for food afterwards--lots of stalls of food and jewelry and fun things, right in front of Belfast's City Hall.





The Belfast Wheel! Like the London Eye. Only three weeks old. And my, what a queue to get on...so we didn't.



Yay Christmas market.


We came home on the train, our feet still wet (or mine anyway, and several others), sleepy and out of it. We ate the last of the brown bread and orange juice; some of us slept and some worked on papers.


Now we're in our last week of classes...everything finishes for Enriqua tomorrow. Friday is a semi-showcase of devising stuff at the Gaiety (should do my research (read: watch Bugs Bunny cartoons on youtube) for that soon), & rehearsal with Antoinette. The weekend is our own. Monday and Tuesday we have rehearsals; Wednesday is the showcase; Thursday is Peter's Seagull reading; Friday is packing & cleaning the apartment & last hanging out with people; next Saturday we all go our separate ways. 10 more days.